turning the compliment by walking back to Rydal, and both of them finding the time all too short for the interchange of the fulness of the thoughts within them. On this visit the astronomer recognised from the friendship and the criticism of Wordsworth that, although he had the poetic mind, the poetic faculty, he must take a back seak as a poet. He might come within a measurable distance of Wordsworth, but it was like the man getting into the front row of the pit stalls looking up to his superior officer in the private box, with admiration unmixed with envy. Contented with his own status, he reverently admired the faculty divine which shone so splendidly round his big brother of the lakes, he honoured the man, rejoiced in a friendship which continued until Wordsworth was no more. And well might any man be proud of so distinguished a mark of favour as the friendship of our gentlest poet, the very high priest of Nature, the exponent of the silence of the hills, the music of the stream, the song of the birds in spring, whose shade lingers around Helvellyn, whose spirit permeates the blue waters of Grasmere. Not only was it this young man's privilege to enjoy the elder man's friendship, but by it his fame is even now perpetuated in Wordsworth's immortal line originally applied to Coleridge, and subsequently adapted to Rowan Hamilton, "the rapt one of the god-like forehead." Could any more sublime appellation be found for applying to a revered friend, or to the hero on whom the public set their gaze ?

Two years subsequent to the Ambleside visit, Hamilton returned to the English lakes, this time to be an intmate of Rydal Mount as guest of the poet, closely cementing their friendship. Here he was introduced to Mrs. Hemans, who became to him a familiar friend, as also did Lady Bentinck, who, with Lady Lonsdale, guided the poet and the astronomer around the glades of Lowther Castle. The duration of the visit was three weeks in the fulness of the summer season, and it need scarcely be said that from its commencement to its close, when on 20th August, 1830, Hamilton sailed from Whitehaven to Dublin those two brethren in heart and mind were full of a reciprocal enjoyment, keen and enduring, a proof which is found in the farewell verses written by the guest:

"I bid thee now farewell, but with me bring
Many a remembrance as a treasured thing,
Many a fond thought, and many a vision clear,
Of all the loveliness I've gazed on here,
In beauty's very home, where all around
Seemed as her own peculiar, sacred ground.
Nor shall the commune soon forgotten be,
Here in that sacred presence held with thee;
Whether my joy was heightened and refined
By impress of thy meditative mind.

And haply if some fluctuating aim

Disturb me, or some hope without a name,
"Twill vanish 'neath the steady light that flows
From the calm eminence of thy repose."

No one save an extreme enthusiast in astronomy and mathematics should undertake the perusal of that part of Hamiltons' life which deals with these sciences, and even then only if they have abundant leisure, for the book is mighty in detail, elaborate in treatment; indeed it requires a strenuous reader to peruse the other branch of the biography, giving the astronomer's copious correspondence, although in this department there is much to reward those who care for this branch of biography.

In a letter to a friend dated " Observatory, February 11th 1858, Hamilton speaks of labour and fame, and in regard to the former says 'a labour-loving and truth-loving man—be such my epitaph,' and in a eulogium of him by a friend who knew him well we find the following: His reputation even now does not rest on the partiality of friends and countrymen. The learned men of all lands have already declared him worthy of the highest honours which can be paid to intellectual eminence. This world-wide recognition, at the present time, of his genius and discoveries, affords us a sure pledge and earnest of the perpetuity of his reputation, and warrants us in regarding his name as a glory which is not to pass away from the scientific and literary chaplet of Ireland.""

D. B. A.

F all the personages living in Highland tradition, ancient

has had more contumely heaped upon his memory by a section of his countrymen than the long deceased Captain John Macpherson of the 82nd Regiment, known in the vernacular patronymically, and from his dark complexion as Iain dubh MacAlastair, more generally as Othaichear Dubh, Bail a Chrodhain.

Perishing by a lamentable accident in his 75th year, while on a hunting expedition in the forest of Gaick, in the Central Highlands, during the winter of 1799-1800, the Captain's name has since that event, and owing to the circumstances attending the disaster, been made the constant theme and vehicle of the wildest and most improbable fictions-from the silly and superstitious tales of the common country-people down to the bombastic fustian of the full-blown romance of Mr. James Grant. More recently Highland magazines and newspapers have taken up the wondrous story, giving from time to time harrowing and circumstantial details (hitherto confined to Highland bothies) of all the wondrous doings of this wonderful man in an "improved" style no whit behind the Raw Heads and Bloody Bones of the "Penny Dreadfuls."

By the greatest of these romancers Captain Macpherson has been accused of living in a house built, of course, "in the old baronial style," with the usual and proper adjuncts of gloomy dungeons and underground passages, miles in length, requisites and adornments that would seem to have been peculiar to the farm-houses of Badenoch in the eighteenth century; of serving in the Black Watch, as perhaps better suiting his complexion than the 82nd Regiment; of making profitable contracts with a sable gentleman of doubtful character, whom he outwitted; of enlisting likely young lads of an aspiring turn as recruits; of forcibly enlisting wellproportioned parsons, who might possibly fight better than they preached; of taking part in several engagements in the West Indies; of several times meeting suspicious-looking he-goats, with horns and eyes; of wearing strange attire, to wit, homespun breeches on his legs, a cap made of fur on his head, and shoes made of hide on his feet; of dying, because he couldn't help it; and when dead, of refusing to move unless he were lifted!

We would be doing great injustice to the deep researches of one of the Captain's accusers were we to omit quoting the terms of the contract with the Prince of Darkness (certainly the most curious item in the whole indictment) copied, sans doubt, from the original minutes preserved in the Imperial Archives, and which we give in the writer's own words:—

"In a contract with the Evil One, who had agreed to give the Captain whatever he might desire, the latter, as his first request, wished that the lands of Ballachroan should for their extraordinary fruitfulness be a wonder to all who saw them. To this Clooty agreed, provided he would get the roots. That year the Captain laid down a grain crop only. He reaped his fields in the usual way, and when Clooty came for his share of the crop the Captain coolly told him to take the roots according to agreement. Satan complained of this treatment, and insisted that he had been cheated. 'Well, then,' said the Captain, I'll give you the crop next, and I'll take the roots myself.' To this Hornie readily agreed, and the following year the Captain planted a green crop, potatoes, turnips, etc At the proper time Satan again appeared on the scene and demanded his share. The Captain mockingly pointed to the

Alas for human

'shaws.' Clooty grinned with rage, etc." credulity and the wiles of the Arch Deceiver! Clooty must have grinned in quite another fashion when our adventurous historian, after payment of the customary honorarium, and thoroughly duped, took his leave of the Nether Kingdom with a vamped-up version of an old and time-worn story (told there oftentimes by Odin to his friend Nicholas) carefully secured in his singed wallet. This is the original as told by Dr. Dasent in his translation of the "Norse Tales" (a story exactly similar is also related by Rabelais):

"Once on a time Bruin and Reynard were to own a field in common. They had a little clearing up in the wood, and the first year they sowed rye.

"Now we must share the crop as is fair and right,' said Reynard, if you like to have the root I'll take the top.'

"Yes, Bruin was ready to do that, but when they had threshed out the crop, Reynard got all the corn, but Bruin got nothing but roots and rubbish. He did not like that at all, but Reynard said it was how they agreed to share it.

"This year I have the grain,' said Reynard, 'next year it will be your turn. Then you shall have the top and I shall have to put up with the root.'

"But when Spring came and it was time to sow, Reynard asked Bruin what he thought of turnips.

"Aye, aye,' said Bruin, 'that's better than corn,' and so Reynard thought also. But when harvest came Reynard got the roots, while Bruin got the turnip tops; and then Bruin was so angry with Reynard that he put an end at once to his partnership with him.”

A specimen this of the trash manufactured and in circulation of which Colman's story of the "Three Black Crows" is no exaggeration. That story, however, reaches a terminationthis seems to go on increasing in volume, invention, and distortion, and the latest legend is that given in a recent issue of a Glasgow newspaper. As a sort of landmark, therefore, it may be well to give from trustworthy sources a faithful narrative of the Life and Death of the famous Black Captain.

Be it known then to all who may have heard of this terrible Othaichear Dubh that he was the offspring of mortal parents, and that there is no record of any portentous omens